Talk cheap for lives in distress

Wednesday

Oct 17, 2012 at 6:00 AM

Clive McFarlane

It is perhaps fitting that Pleasant Street area residents hold their community meetings at All Saints Church on Irving Street, because at times it seems nothing less than divine intervention can alter the trajectory of their lives.

Monday evening — when more than 50 residents met at the church to discuss improving their living conditions — was probably an exception, but residents were told that the city needed their help in allocating its annual, but dwindling Community Development Block Grant funds.

CDBG funding is provided through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and is largely touted as antipoverty. Residents Monday night were encouraged to engage in a discussion of how the city should allocate the next round of grant funding.

They were quick to bring up a range of issues — jobs, affordable housing, food, youth programs, foreclosure prevention, crime, hunger, education, community policing, etc. — that they said should be a priority for the funds.

Hezel Rivera, a single mother of three and a graduate of a medical assistant program who worked as a medical assistant for seven years until she became homeless about seven months ago, was among those who spoke at the community meeting.

Her life was already a struggle, trying to maintain and afford a decent apartment for her and her children, but when she had to take maternity leave with her last child, her self-reliant support systems fell like dominoes. On Monday night, she beseeched city officials to do more to provide affordable housing and day care opportunities in the city.

One resident, a French-speaking refugee, spoke at the meeting in his native tongue. An increasing number of his fellow refugees are coming into the city, and services specifically tailored to their needs are sorely needed, he said through an interpreter.

It was impossible, after listening to the residents talk about their lives, not to come away with an iron-clad grasp of the disconnect between the politics of the times and their lives.

“We are seeing a methodical attack on the poor, the immigrant and the less fortunate,” City Councilor Joe O’Brien said, alluding in part to politicians promoting draconian reductions in federal spending that benefit the poor, the young and the elderly.

Indeed, as Mr. O’Brien noted, the community block grant program, which was “created and funded by enlightened leaders who believe we have a fundamental obligation to help those who are struggling,” has been cut by 30 percent over the past five years.

Last fiscal year, the city received $4.1 million. This fiscal year, the funding is down to $3.9 million. In addition, Worcester is increasingly using the funds to cover traditional municipal services.

More than 40 percent of the funding each of the past two fiscal years, for example, has gone to buttress services in the Department of Public Works, the Division of Parks and Recreation, the Department of Inspectional Services and to cover planning and financial costs.

Depending on the outcome of the Nov. 6 election, CDBG funds are likely to be reduced again, if not discontinued entirely next fiscal year.

As a result, it was not lost on some residents that Monday night’s discussion was more cathartic than promising of any real change.

“We’ve been asking and asking and nothing has been done,” Winifred Octave a longtime member of the community, said of the community’s plea for help from City Hall.

“I have been here for 17 years, and we have said all of these things before, so is this just talk?”

As far as using CDBG funds to help their community, it was mostly talk.